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In my life, I’ve worked some odd jobs. Since high school and in this order, I’ve:

worked at the GAP;

been a bag boy at a golf course;

picked up millions of golf balls at multiple driving ranges;

worked at a night driving range with ponds and ﬂoating golf balls (wearing waders and scooping up ﬂoating golf balls at midnight among frogs and leeches makes this one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had);

delivered, set up and broken down bounce castles for children’s parties;

raked countless lawns in college;

worked for a landscaper cutting lawns;

done home deconstruction (taking a sledgehammer to walls);

been a bartender;

baby-sat three British children;

been a bar back at a country and western bar;

been a kayak guide (I’ve given hundreds of three-hour tours);

worked in the sports information department of a university;

been a PGA club professional and golf instructor;

worked in manifest; and

managed a drop zone.

Ninety percent of these jobs share one thing in common: I didn’t enjoy them. It’s not that the jobs themselves were bad—in fact I loved the actual work at nearly all of them. What made the jobs unenjoyable was the environment. Either management wasn’t so good or the mix of people who had to work together didn’t mesh very well or the combination of both.

Have you ever been really excited about getting a new job only to be disappointed that it wasn’t what you’d hoped it would be? Of course; we all have.

As a business major in university, I learned the core principles of business from accounting, marketing, statistics, economics and the like. Having been out in the real world, I’m now aware of a glaring hole in my business education. Culture. It seems that my business education revolved around the creation of popular widgets manufactured inexpensively and sold at a tidy profit.

That’s one-tenth of business. What business school didn’t account for is the happiness factor of people. As a self-confessed workaholic (I really enjoy working), I do believe that anyone who spends more than 40 hours a week doing anything should enjoy it. I’m not so idealistic as to think that jobs can’t be stressful or even hard, but the environment at so many of the jobs I worked at could have been so much better.

Since launching my business four years ago, I’ve taken what I learned from all those jobs based on how I was made to feel. In furthering my education about culture, I invested in a trip to Zappos for three days to learn the ins and outs of a company that was known for being big on happiness and employee satisfaction. I’ve read dozens of books on the topic. From those experiences, I’ve tried to inject them into my own company. Here is what I can share about business that wasn’t taught or emphasized enough in university:

A company without a vision is lost. There has to be something bigger than ourselves that we’re working toward.

The most successful companies have values that dictate every decision.

Be uncompromising about the people you hire. Hiring exclusively for a person’s skills will likely cause pain later down the line.

Communicate. You can’t overcommunicate.

Money cannot be the motivating factor to drive a business. There must be something more.

Evaluate every customer point of interaction with your business. Make every interaction five star.

Have empathy for your customers; understand their pain points and solve them.

Accomplish the statement above and money takes care of itself.

Developing company culture takes work and is ongoing.

Trust your people.

This month, we’ve hired the amazing Melissa Nelson Lowe to our team. Though we know Melissa is a great person, it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to hire her. We value our culture so much that we are cautious whom we let in. Although we were excited beyond belief at the possibility of her joining us, we did our due diligence in flying her to our ofﬁce, letting her meet our team, sharing our core values and ensuring she would be a complement to our culture. Having gone through that exercise, we’re even more excited about having her join our team as she exceeded our expectations at every point.

I have learned a lot building this business. I don’t have it all figured out and I’m still learning, but I’d say of all the things I’ve done since launching my business four years ago, the most important has been hiring extraordinary people. As I write this, I can honestly say that I am the weakest link in my own company. Every day that I begin my work, I am challenged by the people I work with and it’s a great feeling.

About the Author

As a former drop zone manager for nine years with proven results, James La Barrie is a different kind of marketing professional. As the founder of DropZone.Marketing, he helps his DZ clients increase revenues by implementing techniques in word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM), social media, company culture, branding and world-class web design.